


Red Dust and Chains

by Deannie



Series: In Your Head Bingo [5]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Period-Typical Racism, Racist Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 18:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1951593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Man who owned me and my family when I was a little one owned an old lady—been a slave all her life. Miss Masie’d tell me, if I get out of here, to leave it be. She’d tell me God has a reason for everything... Last time I was in chains, I was a child. Helpless. Well, I ain’t helpless now, and I’ll be <i>damned</i> if I let this be.<br/>Written for the hc_bingo prompt: captivity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Dust and Chains

**Author's Note:**

> Themed bingo: In Your Head. All stories must be written from single character perspective and the majority of the story must be that character with no real-time interaction with others (meaning flashbacks and imagined discussions are acceptable, but actual conversations are not).

I swore I’d never be here again. In chains. I swore I’d die before it happened.

But here I am. I felt the bullet that dropped me but not whatever came after. With all the blood caked on me, I figure they must’ve cracked me in the skull for good measure and then just hauled me with them ahead of the cloud of dust. Woke up locked in this damn, dark shed, shackles on my hands and feet. I been here ever since.

And if I can just work these chains off me, I’ll make sure they pay for killing damn near everyone I had left who cared for me.

I don’t know exactly how long it’s been since the landslide, but it’s night now. Must still be that same night, since I ain't dropped dead of infection or the head wound. Leg is numb for now, which is better than it was. My hands are swollen and torn, but I’m making progress, now I’ve got blood to slick along the shackles. Those cuts'll get infected too—I'm coated in fine red dust that tickles at my throat if I breathe too deep. Got to ignore the coughing and the blood if I'm going to get out of here.

Ain’t gonna be the only blood shed tonight anyway, that’s for damn sure. Don't know how bad my leg is, but as long as I can crawl, I’m going to see them all hang for this. If they make it to the gallows.

My head is pounding, ears ringing so I can hardly think. Ain't something I got time for right now, and working on the shackles is enough to focus on, so I let my mind wander.

Man who owned me and my family when I was a little one owned an old lady—been a slave all her life. Miss Masie’d tell me, if I get out of here, to leave it be. She’d tell me God has a reason for everything.

I don’t know what God’s reason was for that slaughter at Red Cliff; for killing all my friends at once and leaving me here alone—don’t know what his reason was for Mama or Daddy, for that matter. Last time I was in chains, I was a child. Helpless.

Well, I ain’t helpless now, and I’ll be damned if I let _this_  be. Hell, part of me wants to kill them all. I suppose Josiah’d spout his whole “eye for an eye” speech, telling me that killing them wouldn’t help. Or maybe not. He was close enough to see the explosion, I know. Closer than me and probably with a damn good view of what happened to JD and Ezra. God...

We weren’t even expecting it, really. I’m guessing neither was Goff. Bigoted son of a bitch is proof that the war had nothing to do with us slaves for most people, including captains in the Union Army. From what JD put together, for Ambrose Goff, it was mostly about looting.

Must have run through his war chest though, cause now he’s seen fit to go after some of the outlying ranchers. Burn them out before they can get a good hold on the land then grab it for himself. Killed the Hildebrants and strung up their two colored ranch hands. Making a point, I guess.

Wasn't a point Chris or the rest of us much cared for. We saddled up and Chris let Vin loose on ‘em. Only took a day to track them and figure out they was heading to Red Cliff.

Lord, when I first saw Red Cliff, it made me glad I come West. A deep red wall of rock, stretching up into the clouds, it just kind of floats over the desert around it like a mirage—one of those places round here you can barely believe exists. I remember watering my horse at the spring there at the base of it, watching the water drop down over the rocks like a little waterfall, and thinking that if something that huge and that beautiful existed out here, maybe miracles could happen. Maybe a slave boy like me really could make good and live a free life.  
  
It’s also a good place to hole up and hide—there are some fair sized caves there along with the water source. And Goff and his men were waiting for us. We had to scatter quick to try to deal with them...

When I came to, in this shed, I was hoping, for a while, that maybe some of the guys had gotten to the caves before the rock slide. Maybe Chris and Vin... But they’d’ve been here by now.

I see the cloud of red and hear the sound of screams in my mind and close my eyes. Ain’t nobody coming for you, Nathan.

 _Not in this life, anyway._ I sound like Josiah…

Damn you, Josiah. Damn you and those blasted crows of yours.

“I just have a bad feeling,” you said. You looked around, saw the crow wheeling in the sky and diving to land on a saguaro, and you snorted that death-wish snort of yours and grinned.  “It appears the Almighty is in agreement.”

Should have paid you more mind.

“Mr. Sanchez, there are times when a bird is just a bird.” Ezra never did cotton to your superstitions. Funny, since he had so many of his own.

Funny, too, he had such a—what’d he call it? an “affinity”—for explosives and he ended up blown all to hell....

The blast was so big, I couldn't even see him or JD fall from where I was. Just a God awful spout of flame and cloud of splintered wood. Sometimes I catch myself hoping they survived, but that’s damn selfish. I seen enough of those kinds of injuries in the war to know I’d never want that for one of mine.

And you all were. Mine. Y’all were family, sure as my daddy and my sisters was.

Wish I could’ve said goodbye to y'all. Don’t worry, though, Josiah. I expect I’ll be joining you sooner than later…

It’s a fair piece of time before I finally feel my left wrist slip through to freedom. My hand’s numb, though. I couldn’t throw a damn thing at this point—doubt I'll even be up to holding a gun. But I can hit. And I will. Soon as I get my strength together and get that door open.

Then I’ll sneak out and get to work. This is where having Vin’d be a good thing. He could hide in plain sight better than anyone should. Just… a ghost when he wanted to be.

Guess now he ain’t nothing _but_ a ghost. He and Chris were closest to the cliff when the slide started and that should’ve given them the best chance to hole up in those caves and hope for a way out. But I saw Vin take that bullet before the whole damn thing came down on them all. Probably wouldn’t’ve been up to crawling much less running, and Chris was a papa bear when he needed to be, but even he couldn’t’ve dragged Vin far enough fast enough.

Josiah would have been able to do it. If he’d been anywhere near. If he hadn’t been running along the base of the cliff like a bat out of Hell, heading for Buck, who was running for JD, who was behind that wagon, trying not to die. Him and Ezra…

And then there was me. Hunting Goff and McAuliffe, far away enough not to get caught in the blast and the slide, but too far away to be heard when I screamed for them all to just run. Run! Get the Hell out! I could see McAuliffe aiming for the other wagon—for the box of TNT there—too damn close to where Ezra and JD were pinned down. Saw Buck shout his own warning, saw everyone try to scatter.

Saw the whole side of the damn red cliff start to fall like brimstone, snuffing out the fire in the wagon.

Snuffing out a lot of things.

Anger at the memory gives me strength, and I gather myself into a crouch, fighting to hold in a scream at the burn from the hole in my thigh, and head for the door. Gotta muffle these chains somehow—they clink with every step and the memory of that same sound from years ago haunts me. I peek through the slats, searching the darkness, and after a minute there’s the flicker of a campfire and the quiet sound of people bedded down and people milling. I thank God for the night and make a trip round the shed, looking for a loose board or something. There's a tattered tarp and I pick it up. Should be able to rip it into strips and wrap the chains...

I find a half-rotted board on the back wall and work on it slowly, silently. _It’ll come, Nathan,_ I hear a patient voice, like Chris’s, in my mind. _It’ll come. Just give it some time._

Time I got, I tell myself, as my clumsy hands pull at it and my head pounds in time with my heart. Don’t matter how long it takes, I’m getting free. Swear I’m gonna make them pay. They can stretch just like the Hildebrants' men did.

Suppose that’s pretty bloodthirsty of me. Not sure why that don’t bother me none right now, but it don’t. All I can see is red, and all I want is every one of Goff’s gang dead or in jail.

 _Just so long as you don’t get_ yourself _dead in the bargain._

Sorry, Buck. Can’t say as I care so much ‘bout that right now.

The plank comes free and the two next to it follow a bit faster. I’m sweating with the pain of the work and the fire in my leg, so I rest before wrapping the rotten tarp around the chains. I'd wrap my wrists and ankles, too, but they're already going to get infected. I ain't going to hurry it along by wrapping them in filth. Finally, as silent as I can make myself, I crawl my way out and just lie there a minute. Even with my eyes open, I can’t see a damn thing. Hoping that’s the dark and not the head wound.

After a time, I push myself to my knees, listening carefully and hearing nothing. By the time I get to my feet, though, I can hear someone coming, and I lean against the shed, trying to make myself small. I flex my right hand. Still got the shackle on—silent now, or nearly so—but it’ll hold a gun. Hope to hell the walking dead man coming out of the darkness has got one to spare.

I can’t see much more than a shadow, but the man is lollygagging. Boring patrol, up to now, I guess. He ain’t looking at me and I drop him hard and silent with a clumsy, painful, left-hand punch that leaves me satisfied by the crunch of his cheekbone breaking. He’s got a pistol and two knives and I feel the blood and dust on my face crackle as I grin. A man should be well-armed.

Walking in the chains is as hard and as painful as I remember it being, but it’s easy to ignore the added burn of the bullet in my thigh with the memories of red rocks and screaming crowding in. I have to fight past the sound of it in my ears to try to figure out where my next target is.

I didn’t hear Goff's men talking much while I was in that shed, and now I see why. Campfire’s a fair bit from where I was held, which looks to be a dynamiter’s shed, alone on the plain below the cliffs that I can feel more than see in the darkness—far enough away that an accidental blast here wouldn’t take down the cliff face like it did at Red Cliff.

Damn fools should have thought of that before they parked that wagon.

“So what do you think the captain wants with that Negro?”

“Hell if I know. Should’ve just left the nigger there with the rest of the bodies.”

I try to melt into the darkness near the speakers, a stand of trees, not too nearby, giving me shelter. One thing I learned when I was running North: being black has its advantages in the night. I silence a slight clank of the chains against my pants.

The fire is at their backs, and I can see the outlines of two men slouching against a log.

“Wonder if he’s gonna sell him?” the first man asks. Blood rushes to my ears again, drowning out even the screams. I shake with anger and try to control it, but it ain't no use. I won’t be sold again. I won’t be a slave to _nobody_ ever again, damn it.

I heft a knife in each hand, glad when my left one obeys me. Won’t be the prettiest shot I ever made, but I refuse to miss tonight. I lost my friends already. I ain’t gonna lose my freedom, too.

“Boy’s too old to be a proper slave now. Wouldn’t get much for—“

The guard who called me nigger goes down silent from the knife out of my right hand, but my left hand hesitates just enough to give the other guy a chance to react. He’s fast. His gun is out and he’s firing blind into the darkness before my blade hits home and he slumps from the knife in his chest.

Damn. I wanted those knives back, but I ain’t got time for ‘em now, as I hear the rest of the camp waking from the gunfire. I shuffle along, trying to melt into the trees a little farther, my leg and head forgotten in the fog of anger.

A guard comes running and goes down quick. I don’t remember firing.

I ain’t nobody’s boy.

A pack of four or five shadows lunge away from the fire. Four go down, though I only fire twice. Don’t make no sense and I don’t care.

I ain’t nobody’s slave.

I hear the sound of gunfire going on but I don’t get hit. McAuliffe comes out of the darkness, hefting his gun, looking for me and my heart nearly stops as the sight of him stills my shaking and pulls me out of one cloud of anger into another. _He_ killed ‘em. _He_ fired the shot that took out that wagon. The shot that blew up Ezra and JD and buried the others…

I step into the vague light of the campfire, gun trained on him. He’s gonna see his death coming. Don’t care none if it’s mine, too, long as he goes down. 

“Well, hell, nigger!” he calls, all swagger and piss. “You’re stronger than you look. But then, that’s why we keep you all around.”

“You killed ‘em, you son of a bitch.”

He grins and my trigger finger twitches. “Made a hell of a bang, didn’t it?”

His gun is aimed at my stomach and I know he's looking to gut shoot me. He likes to make it hurt.

Tonight, so do I.

My first shot takes off part of his hand, I expect, and his gun drops while he screams. It mixes with the memory of Josiah’s bellow at Red Cliff, and I move forward. Can't remember now how many bullets I got left. Hope it's enough.

“Can't finish it, can you?” he yells, smug as shit. I know he can see in my eyes that I _can_ finish it. I just don't plan to anytime soon. His voice fills with a fear I’m aiming for him to take to his grave. “Just kill me, boy," he goads. "Go on—do it!”

“I ain’t nobody’s boy.” I fire. His knee snaps and his scream turns outraged. Like Chris, yelling for Vin.

“God damn you, nigger!” He clutches his leg with his ruined hand and I feel a little touch of horror at myself. This isn’t what I want to be, but I can’t fight the anger and the fear and the screams and the damn sound of chains ringing in my head.

“Nathan!”

The shock and fear in that ghost of Josiah’s voice stops me for a second. He deserves this, Josiah.

“He deserves to rot in Hell, Nathan,” Josiah’s voice agrees gently. “But not by your hand.”

And suddenly the gun is out of my grip and I whirl, ready to kill whoever’s getting in my way.

Shorter than me but still a bear of a man. Graying hair, soft, worry-filled blue eyes…

“Josiah?” The voice ain’t mine. I ain’t sounded like that since I was little. I reach out and grab him, my chains slapping against the solid realness of him and I feel myself start to shake again. When the hell did it get so damn cold?

I blink and I’m on the ground, half-laying on Josiah’s lap. His voice is rumbling above me, but I don’t really know what he’s saying. Don’t care much, either. I just try to grip the reality that he’s here. Alive.

I’m not alone after all.

“And find the damn keys!” That last is bellowed loud enough for me to understand it, and I look up to find him looking down at me. “You’ll be okay, Nathan.”

I nod. Of course I will. “I thought…” Thought you were dead. Thought you were gone.

He grins. “Sometimes a bird is just a bird, I guess,” he murmurs, soft and comforting but with an edge of grief to it. His face is all kinds of bruised and his eyes are haunted. One hand is wrapped tight with blood on the bandage…

“How…?” I can’t seem to say nothing tonight. Good thing I still got a friend who knows just what I’m thinking.

“We followed as fast as we could,” he tells me, using a bandana soaked in water to clean off my face as I close my eyes and lean into the feeling of it. “Had to dig out a bit first.” The darkness in his voice has me I opening my eyes again, and I'm surprised to find it’s getting light. It’s tomorrow…

The sudden smile in his voice surprises me. “And Chris, as it happens, isn’t half the tracker Vin is.”

The shadow approaching turns into Chris as it gets close and he smirks like I never expected to see again.

“You’re not half the doctor Nathan is," he replies to the jab. "So I expect we’re even.”

Chris looks me over and crouches down next to me. I feel the shackles drop away from my wrists and breathe a sigh of relief, tempered by the silence around us.

“The others?” Both of them get cold and silent and I bow my head. God damn...

“I’m hoping Buck’s found JD and Ezra by now,” Chris says quietly, pulling the chains from my ankles. I’m about to ask about our seventh when he continues after a beat. “Hoping you’ll be able to see to Vin and them once we get back there.”

I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing. A few deep breaths push away the darkness as much as the knowledge of Vin and Buck’s survival does. I can’t hope for it for Ezra and JD—I hope they died quick and painless—but at least we can find them. Give ‘em a good burial.

“How’d you know I wasn’t under there with the rest of them?” I ask, hissing as Josiah eases my head and shoulders to the ground and moves to rip a bigger hole in my pant leg to see to the bullet wound. I know it’s still in there. Gonna hurt like hell when he digs it out.

“Vin saw you,” Chris says quietly, finishing doctoring my head while Josiah works. “Said he figured if you weren’t there digging us out, you had to be in trouble.” He looks up, and in the rising light, I see the outlines of bodies in the field around us. “Looks like you were doing pretty good to take care of it yourself.”

There’s a grim sort of pride in his voice at the death surrounding me. McAuliffe is tied up not far from us. Breathing rough, but breathing. 

Five of them bodies, though… I did that. In cold blood, almost. I didn’t know I could do that.

I didn’t want to know.

“’A man more sinned against than sinning,’ Nathan,” Josiah says to me, quiet and understanding. Lord, I would have missed him and his knack for saying nonsense that sounds like truth. Don’t make what I done any less evil, though.

Chris stops his cleaning and sits back. “Sometimes a man don’t want to know what he’ll do to avenge his own,” he tells me, shadows thick in his eyes. “Sometimes he wishes he was willing to do more.”

I nod. Maybe. Maybe it’s just a truth of love. Daddy killed to avenge Mama—even twenty years later, he done it like it was moments after she died. I killed to avenge… what? My friends, sure. _My_ life, though? My own fear—my own _past_? Those take more to excuse.

“Nathan,” Josiah says, interrupting my thoughts, his gaze worried and sympathetic. “The bullet’s still in there.”

I nod again and steel myself for what’s coming. Push the past back in the past like I always done. “Best get to it, then,” I tell him. “We need to get back and see to the others.”

I see in Chris’s eyes that he don’t hold out any hope for JD and Ezra either, but at least we’ll all be together back at Red Cliff. Least then some of this killing might have been worth it. Least then, it’ll be over.

The sun crests the horizon and I can see individual faces in the men who litter the field nearest to us. A sudden thought turns my blood to ice.

“Where's Goff?”

Chris’s eyes go as cold as mine and I try to hear his answer through the ringing in my ears as Josiah cuts into my leg, digging for the bullet.

“He got away. For now. Soon as we take care of everybody,” he vows quickly, sounding as deadly as I feel. “We go hunting.”

Shit. Guess it ain’t over yet. I close my eyes and see that explosion all over again. See the look of fear on Buck’s face as he ran. The grief on Chris’s face now, the hope he shouldn’t feel on Josiah’s…

Reckon I got a little more vengeance left in me.

 

Least now I know what I’ll do if I have to.

* * * * *  
The End

 

 


End file.
